Yeah what a big fat waste, for well, about anything. Should at least see how a nice IGP like Trinity or something responds to that kind of ram. CPU's are content with 1600mhz/1333mhz ram quite strongly. I just don't understand the purpose of this review myself. But there must be others that do or it wouldn't be done?Reply

Even on an IGP the gain from faster memory is significant in very particular scenarios, but you're definitely right: where are the results using a proper GPU? I bet they show this trend of ever faster and more expensive memory is ridiculous and its ROI is close to non-existent beyond 1600MHz cheap and ordinary memory.Reply

It does not appear to be all about the speed it can hit. That's only a part of the selling point (i think) but also the lower command rates that can be achieved accross the spectrum of speeds. This is key.

Really am liking your memory articles Ian. I'd love to know just how low this ram can go. I hear things like Cas6/7 at more modest speeds.. from users but I haven't had the oportunity to play with any of the TridentX memory yet so I don't really know.Reply

Why keep posting photos of RAM with heat spreaders not fitting on the mini-ITX board in reviews? The board is obviously not designed to accomodate them, and to keep posting the pictures just looks like the reviewer is stupid and hasn't learnt that yet. It even says under the photos the review is on an ASUS P8Z77-V Premium. A proper full size ATX, is what the companies would expect buyers to be using.Reply

It gives the user an idea (perhaps?) of how it will fit in their own setup if their using a large cooler. It sort of does need to be mentioned (almost as a disclaimer) for any buyers looking at ram when their system is in need of something with heatsinks of a lower profile.Reply

and both have wasted vast amounts of page space and my time showing memory stick profiles that won't fit on a motherboard that was never intended to carry those sticks in the first place. Memory sticks may or may not have a tall profile due to their heatsink(s) but may also have fan kits mounted on them in the absence of huge heatsinks.

What is the point of that? The author's choice of motherboard and massive cooling tower obviously preclude the use of most high performance memory w/heatsinks and/or fan kits and would certainly lead me to believe that the author has little experience in thoughtfully putting together a "system" in which all components play well together.

So, while I appreciate the benchmarks the author displays and the consideration that has gone in to the testing of these memory sticks, a more appropriate representation of the ill fit of these particular memory sticks would be a simple one-liner and maybe ONE picture of what NOT to try to mount them in. Because, seriously, it makes the author look like he/she is simply trying to make the maufacturer look and only succeeding in making himself/herself look ignorant.Reply

If you're willing to spend the money for better RAM you should easily be able to afford to go water to make it fit. That ultimately led me to have to switch since air cooler had to get larger to to cool more effectively.

I don't blame anandtech for showing the RAM fitting, that is probably the most frequently asked question ever. Does it fit, blah, blah, blah. Reply

This review (and the one that preceded it) really just go to illustrate how pointless all this is. Clockspeed, latency, the differences in these don't translate to any significant difference in real-world performance. There's not much point, it would seem, in buying anything beyond something cheap and reliable (KVR if you don't want heatsinks, basic HyperX if you do). Any extra money spent on top of that would have been far better spent on a faster CPU.

So, if you've got 16GB of RAM, you can pay $70 for KVR, or $80 for HyperX... Or you can pay $340 for the RAM reviewed here

And you know what? There's no real performance difference in real-world applications. Oh, sure, you see a percentage point or two here and there, but you know what will give you a much bigger boost for your extra $260? Getting a faster CPU or GPU. Those will make a FAR bigger difference than the RAM.Reply

I think reviews like this one are useful precisely because they show, in exhaustive detail, that high-performance RAM is wasteful.

Granted, a lot of us don't need in-depth reviews to know that, but FWIW, I'll toss this article in my bookmark folder and link it whenever I need to demonstrate to someone that they should buy cheaper RAM.Reply

Unless people have more money than brains no one really should be paying a premium for RAM with a frequency higher than 1866 MHz. as there is nothing of substance to be gained from it - as countless tests with real applications confirm. The bogus RAM tests that exaggerate the benefits of higher frquency RAM may dupe the gullible, but those with more PC knowledge know better than to be deceived.Reply

Ugh, you got the single-sided sticks with Hynix H5TQ4G83MFR. Most enthusiasts prefer the double-sided sticks with Hynix H5TQ2G83CFR ICs as they have more headroom than their 4Gbit counterparts. On the other hand, I have a kit of 4x4GB Trident X 2666 and I can't run all 4 sticks at 2800 C11 with stock voltage, though I haven't tried binning the sticks individually. People hate the Trident X 2400C10 sticks when they're single-sided Samsung.Reply